Title: words that can't be spoken (the lies we tell ourselves)Fandoms: Pacific Rim & Sons of AnarchySeries: All I Ever wasPairing: Jax (Raleigh)/Opie Winston, minor het.Warnings: Angst. So much angst. Some infidelity.Word Count: 1322Disclaimer: If I owned this, the right people would have died.Summary: Maybe silence is the liar after all.

They never talk about it.

Not when they're just hitting puberty and sneaking dirty movies from their parents. Not when Jax reaches out for Opie and he just reaches back. It's heated moans and quiet whimpers, jacking each other off beneath the covers where no one else can see.

Talking would make it real, would mean they're not just horny, and Opie doesn't want to lose his best friend now. He needs the comfort of Jax’s touch as his parents' marriage breaks around him and he has to pick a side.

Opie doesn't need words. Words lie and twist and cut, and he's had enough of that. Sex is better. Sex is honest and the only words between them are the ones that make Jax shiver in the dark.

Opie buries his pain in Jax's pleasure and he knows his best friend loves him because he never makes him stop. Jax knows that words are liars, that talking in the light of day would ruin everything, and whenever Opie kisses him, he always kisses back.

As the two of them get older, they start dating girls because that's what's expected – because neither boy has ever doubted that they'll have a wife someday. The club, the cut, the ball and chain, that's always been their future, and Sons of Anarchy ain't no place for fairies. Jax and Opie aren't fairies anyway. They're just friends with benefits so they date and they fuck and they keep their business to themselves. Honestly, girls are soft and round and teasing and Opie likes them fine; it's just the thought of Jax's mouth that keeps him up at night.

The teens screw their way through high school and it never feels like cheating, not even when Opie kisses girls with Jax's taste still on his lips. He fucks his friend at Junior Prom in one of the empty classrooms, fingers him until he's begging and then thrusts his dick inside.

An hour later, he watches Jax accept his crown as Prom King with Tara on his arm. Maybe Opie should be jealous, but he just feels like smirking because he knows that Jax still has his cum dripping down his thighs. The teen dances enough to make his own date happy and kisses her with feeling; both he and Jax should be getting laid again tonight.

But after Senior year when Tara goes to college and Opie is fucking Jax through his depression every other night, that's when Donna tells him that she's pregnant and his life goes off the rails. Opie isn’t sure he loves Donna but he doesn't want his kid to be a bastard and she accepts his proposal happily enough. So his mother plans the wedding and Jax stands as his best man, a ring goes on her finger and everything just stops. They still don't talk about it. But the next time Jax comes over, Opie doesn't touch him and his best friend doesn't ask.

Somehow marriage make things different and Opie tries his best to be the man that Donna wants. It's easy at first. He does care about her; she's smart and sharp and pretty and when their girls are born, that's love at first sight.

But Donna doesn't like the club. She doesn't understand its rules or the fact that he drops everything when his brothers need his help. Donna doesn't want to share her husband's loyalty and she's probably in the right. But the club is Jax and Jax has always been the center of his life. Fucking or not, the other teen is still his best friend, the one that he can count on no matter what goes wrong.

So when Opie gets arrested for the murder of a rival, he doesn't think of snitching. He won't flip on Jax no matter what he's offered and he doesn't doubt that the other man would do the same for him. It was just bad luck that he got fingered and he trusts the club to take care of his family in his place.

Opie spends the next few years in prison, dreaming of the outside and the day that he'll go free. He keeps his head down and tries not to make trouble, though that doesn't mean that he surrenders when trouble still finds him. Opie makes a name for himself as someone who should not be messed with and no one ever dares to question why Jax visits every week. The blond always gives him a smile and a story, giving Opie news about his family and the world outside. These conversations keep him going as the days drag on and he tries not to think about the fact that he looks forward more to seeing Jax than seeing his own wife. Donna always seems angry when she comes to visit, angry at the club and angry at her husband, and more often than not, their talks just end in arguments.

Donna doesn't even pick him up the day that he's released.

When Opie walks out of the prison, it's Jax who's waiting for him and the other man pulls him into a hug. The moment is perfect: blue sky, warm sunshine, no fucking bars in sight, and his best friend's arms tight around his back. There's no need for words between them; words just complicate and Opie holds onto that feeling when Jax drops him off at home.

He needs all the support that he can get to face his dear wife's scowl. Opie cares about Donna and he cares about his children, but at this point, they've spent more time separated than they have together and he honestly doesn't know if they can still make it work.

Opie tries. He takes his daughters to school and helps them with their homework, bringing Donna flowers when she's had a hard day. He does his best to put his family before the club and Donna does her best to forgive him when he fails. It's not perfect, but it's something and Opie thinks that maybe they might have a shot.

But then death walks from the sea one morning and his life goes straight off the rails again.

He doesn't realize it at first. He couldn't have known his world was ending even as he watched the news reports of fallen cities and half a dozen armies trying to keep the monsters back. Charming has always stood apart and those who live there trust SAMCRO to look out for its own.

To tell the truth, Opie is more worried about Jax than he is about sea monsters. While he was in prison, his friend managed to knock up Wendy of all people and that's not a woman who should've ever been a wife. She's an addict and a user and despite the blond's best efforts, she doesn't manage to stay clean. Nine months and their child might have had a chance. But instead she overdoses and starts her labor early, and every doctor who might have saved her was conscripted by the army weeks ago.

Opie is standing with Jax in the hospital when he's told his son is failing and he sees the first cracks form on the day that Abel dies. The other man looks for purpose and finds nothing, starts to challenge Clay for leadership and fights to feel alive.

Opie tries to help him, but he has no words to offer. They've never talked about the things that really matter and as much as he wants to reach out, to comfort Jax the only way he knows, the two of them don't do that anymore. He's not allowed to blow him or whisper filth into his ear.

So Jax gets drunk and he gets angry and the day he finally shatters, Opie thinks that maybe it’s not the words that failed him. Maybe silence is the liar after all.